Brand and Butter
Always straight-talking (occasionally in-your-face), Brand and Butter is the no-BS branding podcast for modern marketers and business owners. Packed with clear-cut advice on the influence and power of branding - and how pairing associations, consumer behaviour, and design thinking can impact how we see, think, feel, and even taste.
Brand and Butter serves up refreshingly honest and never-dull conversations with some of today’s boldest brand strategists and architects. Sometimes funny, sometimes vulnerable (and often unapologetically blunt), this is the podcast that you wish you’d listened to before launch.
Tara Ladd is the Founder and Brand Strategist at Your One and Only, a brand and design studio here for brands who refuse to settle. Evolving brand identities to stay relevant fusing psychology, strategy, and design.
Brand and Butter
Build Your Brand to Last: Aligning Strategic and Tactical Messaging
We're diving into the nuanced world of brand strategy and exploring why an emotional connection is key to brand success. In this episode, we debunk misconceptions about branding and visual identity and open up the conversation on the power of value alignment and authenticity in building trust, and fostering long-term relationships with your audience.
Plus, we'll explore the distinction between brand marketing and tactical marketing, emphasising the importance of maintaining a consistent and genuine brand message (even when those short-term gains are tempting!).
Tune in to discover how to cultivate a brand that not only stands out but also stands the test of time (like that?)
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you're listening to Brandon butter a straight-talking, occasionally in your face no BS branding podcast for modern marketers and business owners here, for those who want to understand the influence and power of branding and how pairing associations, consumer behavior and design thinking can impact what people see, think and feel. I'm your host, tara Ladd, the sometimes funny, sometimes vulnerable and often unapologetically blunt founder and creative director of Brand and Design Agency. Your one and only. Welcome to this week's episode of Brand and Butter. I want to dive into the conversation that I keep seeing around and around, and that's basically the understanding structure of what brand strategy is. And now I think, when we look at it from an insider's perspective, it's really straightforward, but I believe that there is a knowledge gap. It's really straightforward, but I believe that there is a knowledge gap, and so, put simply, your brand strategy is your long-term goal of what you're going to do with your brand. So the way I like to look at it is you have a business strategy, which is why you exist pretty much, why you in business, the reason that you have all the like intricate details of the way you do work, your business models, the pricing structures which also fall into marketing, I might add, but it's kind of you know the guts of why you exist. The brand itself, even though you hear the why of the brand, is more of the emotional attachment to that transaction. So it's why should people connect with you? Why do they need to connect with you? You know the should people connect with you? Why do they need to connect with you? You know the why here, why you? Why now, who we are, what we do, what we stand for, what we're about. You know all that type of stuff and marketing is getting that message out to as many people as possible and sales is getting people to buy from you. It's like going on a date. Right, your brand is what attracts people, it's who you are, it's your persona, it's your personality. And then your marketing is like getting them to be your friend. It's like that ongoing messaging. What are you saying to them? And then sales is getting them on the date. And then advertising is like hey, this is why you should be on the date with me. So there's all these like different ways of doing things.
Speaker 1:Pr also stands in that category and I think there are just so many different things that are involved in brand building and publication and publicity and visibility is that people are getting really confused as to what each thing means, and so, because a lot of people just don't know what brand is, they simply put it down to your visual identity, so your logos, your colors, your fonts. That's simply like saying that a person is what they wear and their name. It's so base level that it's really starting to distinguish or differentiate those that know their shit versus those that don't know anything about it at all. And now what we see is designers that and I am started as a designer, but those that are designers that want to do branding will sell strategy in the hopes that they get a bigger paying project. And this isn't to slam any of my fellow creatives, it's just simply the way it works. And we see this with copywriters as well, and the problem with this is that you then get people that are below par, delivering work that doesn't actually cut through. Now, don't get me wrong. They may be absolutely amazing at their craft, so they could write till the cows come home, you know, really compelling, really compelling messages, and it could be that these designers are phenomenal. You know, there are designers out there that shit all over me Absolutely amazing type of designers.
Speaker 1:However, if the strategy does not align to the execution, which is the physical writing and the physical designing, then there will be a disconnect, and so what we see notoriously are people with amazing products and also you need to have a good product. Eventually they will know. So you need to have all of the things kind of aligned. So, one, you need to have a good business model. Two, you need to have a really good brand presence and visibility and attraction to people. Three, you need to know how to market. That is hugely important. It's usually the first thing that gets cut off first and it's really the last thing that needs to be cut off, because in a market where people are drawing you know coin from all over the shop or pinching pennies, I should say the first thing that you really need to do in that time is get out there and get your name known, because if they're not seeing your things, you are simply not in the consideration set. And to give you a rewind on that, the consideration set is what people recall when they are ready to buy something. So when we see the evidence of brand, what we want to try and do is find the target market, what they need, what they want and align them to the overarching goal of what that business is. So if you are trying to sell X service or X product, you then figure out who sits in the target audience. Now, this is where marketing and brand crossover. Right, this is where they kind of need to be hand in hand.
Speaker 1:Marketing is such a huge, huge element, and some would consider brand as a subset of marketing. Kind of is, but kind of, isn't it? What I'm actually seeing now is you're seeing brand kind of separate slightly, and brand, in a nutshell to me, is basically the memory that people have about you or your brand, and we're seeing the rise of personal brand and we're seeing the rise of business brand in alignment to personal brand. The reason that that is is because we're watching the next evolution of brand and those that have no idea about branding or no idea about the past. I believe that in order to be very good at your job, you should know the past. You should know the history. You need to know what has failed in order to know what will work in the future. You should know the history. You need to know what has failed in order to know what will work in the future and also, sometimes the things that are you know, that have kicked off in the past, are the things that can be reinvented for the future. What worked then, can it work now?
Speaker 1:You know, what we're seeing now is really boring marketing. It's actually really boring, and it's because people are just doing what other people are doing, because it's so scarce and they're not really using their mindset, and so what we're seeing is rinse and repeat bullshit. And this is why everyone's screaming for attention. I need to stand out. I need more visibility. The problem is, everyone's trying to scream loud and they're screaming louder, and what you really need to do is sidestep and try and be different, and then people go well, I don't know how to be different, and that's because you haven't asked yourself the right questions yet.
Speaker 1:This is strategy. So I always like to ask, and they always say it's like the rule of three ask three questions. Why are you in business? Cool, why, cool, why, cool, why? And by the third time, you'll probably hit a halt. Either that or you'll probably hit a halt. Either that or you'll get frustrated and something emotional will come out and that will be probably the answer. And and this is what brand strategy is it's mapping that answer? And what brand strategy is? It should essentially be a connection of internal and external branding.
Speaker 1:So internal are your values, are your people, is your process, is your experience, it's what you stand for, it's all of those things. It's your mission, vision, values, it's your positioning, your value proposition, which is, for those that don't know, the last email that we sent out from your one and only you can go and check that talks about value prop. It's actually the lead, but it is that specialty of why you exist. It's your distinct differentiation for the market. If you do not have that, it doesn't have to be anything glorified, it just has to be what makes you the person to go to over that person over there and sometimes it's just the most simple thing. It could be your culture. I don't understand why people are not taking their culture seriously, because it can literally sell you more, more work or sell you more work. It can sell you more things, get you more things, make you more sales. That's where we're going.
Speaker 1:So it's when people know that you are a really good brand, you've got a really good relationship process, you know that you are very um, authentic and I know that word's overused, but I mean just be real, but if they know that that's a truthful, because it builds trust and inevitably it builds trust. People want trust. They want to know that they can trust you. This is huge. So authenticity enables you to build trust. So what we see is brands go out, they build their profile, they've got an amazing product. They don't know how to sell it and they don't know how to sell it, and then you'll see the messaging's broken. Chances are yes, you're probably correct, the messaging is wrong. The reason the messaging is wrong is because you actually don't understand your audience, and I say this so many times and I will speak to people that just simply think that they know who they are.
Speaker 1:But the thing is, we've all changed, even over the last 12 months, and strategies need to be evolving. It should be a constant pivot. We shouldn't be just setting and saying, yep, cool, I've done that tick. Next, it needs to be like okay, what is my data saying? Who is hitting my website, what's working, what messages are resonating? And it's when you find those connection pieces that you go oh, okay, they're actually saying this and I thought that they wanted this. And where I'm seeing the, to be fair, at the baseline of most things. It's ego. I don't want to admit that I was wrong here, or I am a bit biased in where I'm going, and I say this from experience because it was me. I was like this can't be happening when it was, and what we do is we put on our rose colored glasses and we think that we're actually really amazing at what we do, and then we actually look into the holes of things and we get down onto the ground and we go, oh, okay, and you find those holes. Ah, okay, and you find those holes.
Speaker 1:Brand strategy is a way to connect what it is that you stand for, to attract the people that you're trying to attract to. Then you know, get that transaction or build that relationship. Brand, in a nutshell, is relationship. Those that get out and sell with a monetary message are only going to make short-term income. I can guarantee you this. It will work for them short-term, but longevity it will not work.
Speaker 1:And herein lies the difference between strategic and tactical marketing. Brand story, brand messages, relationship, culture, all of those things. Consistency built over a long term, build trust. And when you're saying the same things over and over and you're rocking up and looking the same over and over and over and you're constantly having conversations that you people will start to go okay, that's what she said. She's always said that. And when they're ready to buy, I say she, if you're a dude listening, he you get it, or they, whatever you want to stand for these days, but what I'm trying to say is that those people will connect with you based on that consistent message.
Speaker 1:We've seen this with Taylor Swift. Taylor Swift has continuously said the same message over and over again until now. We're at that point where we're like in the time where society has shifted to align with what she's been thinking. I mean, a lot of people have thought this way, but we're seeing now the mass change. We're seeing behavioral shifting, which is why I love behavior so much. And where I'm at with psychology, brand psychology and what I'm doing here is I'm trying to get people to understand where the next evolution of branding is going, and this is it so where.
Speaker 1:How I tie this in with with Taylor is that she's been saying these same messages for years and years and years and years, and so now we're looking at a case of you know, ah, we've all caught up to what she's been saying, and then all of a sudden, it's like she's been saying, and then, all of a sudden, it's like she's been saying this the whole time. And then there's these messages that are being brought up from years and years and years ago of evidence of her saying these things. And now it's built this instantaneous trust because she's like she's always been that. So we're seeing these people that you know in, especially the music industry, falling down and her alignment to that space. Has she severed that relationship? She's like I don't want to be part of that and we've all gone oh, okay, cool, we get it now. And and we're seeing these people just buckle and fall down. Yet she stayed true to who it was, that she's always been, and this is where the strong alignment has come from. There's a whole different area of why people hate her. I'm not going to get into that today. That's a whole behavioral dive and I'll talk about that.
Speaker 1:But what I'm trying to say is that if you're looking at a way to really build your connection with an audience because this is where it really needs to be I say that there are three things that you should be really looking into. One is your value alignment. Now, I'm not talking about saying I have a list of values. Here they are tick, tick, tick. You have to live, breathe and act on these values every single day. You cannot just rock up and say this is our list and say, yep, cool, we've done that. You have to be, you have to have integrity in what it is that you do. It is what builds trust. It's like meeting someone that says that there's something and then they act a certain way. People don't want to be your friend or people can read through your bullshit. Consumers aren't dumb. We are also consumers. We are not dumb. These messages that you see continuously by people praising to be something and then not acting on it they are always called out.
Speaker 1:Long-term branding is that relationship building. And so here on lies the difference between brand and marketing. Now don't get me wrong here. Brand marketing is still brand. You have brand marketing, and then you have tactical marketing. So that's tactical marketing is pushing them towards an objective. So a short term objective could be that you have a campaign, and so you would have tactical marketing. So that's tactical marketing is pushing them towards an objective. So a short-term objective could be that you have a campaign, and so you would have tactical marketing. Would be like a campaign or a sprint type material where you go hard on something, you get it done and then it's done and dusted, you know.
Speaker 1:But you're always going to be selling things on top of the underlying you know foundation. So the way that we look at this is the bottom of everything that you live, breathe and do is your brand strategy and your brand foundation, so that stays the same. Who you are, what you do, what you're about, who you're here for, your brand story, why you exist, who your people are all of those things stay there. Then, on top of that, you have the things that you sell, and then you have the campaigns that you have and the promotions that you're running, and all of these things come and go, but at the very base, your brand strategy remains the same, your marketing strategy. It changes, and so your brand marketing strategy is the brand message that comes up and your sales strategy and your you know all of those pieces that you push out.
Speaker 1:Campaign strategies are for short term. The long-term brand messaging is what builds trust. What we're seeing at the moment are people that are doing a lot of short-term tactics, a lot of tactical marketing, and trying to do those short-term wins, which is important. You actually need both and they're not building that long-term, sustainable message and all they're being seen for is this short-term transaction. This is not going to last long-term. We've seen this, notoriously, over the history of everything Coming from the GFC. It's the exact same rotation. You watch this happen. This happened.
Speaker 1:I've been in the market for a while now 17 years. This is a common pattern. When the market dips, you see a scarcity approach. You see people talking about money because that's scarce and people don't know what to do and how to save it and what they could get with the most bang for their buck. The long-term pieces always seem like the first thing to get dropped off the board, but trust me, when you are getting to you know the market picks back up again. It's always those people that have stayed true to their foundations, and we're actually seeing this now. What we're seeing is that those that have been really authentic and have integrity in the way that they've shown up are starting to get some attention, and what you'll see is that those that have always pushed that money, income signaling.
Speaker 1:And well, don't get me wrong, there are areas when you need to talk about how much you've made or how much you can grow or the evidence in what you do, but that should not be the sole strategy, because that is not a strategy, that is just simply a tactic to use. And then what happens over the long term? If you haven't built a community, then you will not keep those people. Those people will just simply leave. There'll be a one in, one out, one shot, one. You know what is it? One hit wonder type person and you won't have that retention.
Speaker 1:So the importance is and I'll say that before you need three things. So we go back to values, which is what I just went on this massive tangent about. Values are hugely important. Number two is personality and likability. So people need to like you and you need to be like them. People need to be able to see themselves in what it is that you do, or your content, or see themselves in alignment with an identity, alignment into your product or your service.
Speaker 1:So, for example, people buy Sorbent, or they buy who Gives a Crap toilet paper, or they buy Woolworths brand toilet paper. Buy who gives a crap toilet paper, or they buy, you know, woolworths brand toilet paper some people don't care about. You know sustainability, unfortunately they don't, or they're more it's, or that they it's take that back, or it's that they they're not. It's not that they don't care about sustainability. It's that they are more cost efficient at the moment because they may not be making as much money as they were. Therefore, they they have to make choices, that you know. That come first. So, unfortunately, they would then need to look for a price that is lower. Therefore, that's where the decision making comes in. They then go okay, I used to stand here and be very, you know sustainably, you know aligned and you know conscious of how I spend my money, but right now, I can't afford to do that and I have this much money to spend. So I'm putting it here for the time being.
Speaker 1:That doesn't mean that their values have changed as a person, but this is also what we're seeing. We're seeing a huge identity shift in alignment, because people aren't where they feel they need to be. It's like, you know, when they say I'm a rich girl trapped in a poor girl's body, and then, and then you're kind of like it's going against what you really wish you could be, and so there's an identity crisis, and this is what's happening. We're seeing this huge identity crisis, and then what happens with that is that people get a bit lost, they get a bit overwhelmed and they don't know what they need to do. And so we we as brands and marketers need to then look at how we're then marketing to these types of people, because what message used to resonate?
Speaker 1:So, say, you are talking to the person that was sustainably conscious and they would spend more money to buy the you know higher end toilet paper. If we're using it, it's hardly higher end, but let's just say a higher end product. They are at the moment, in a bit of a situation where they cannot be there at the moment and they've had to drop down. So, as brands, you're now no longer targeting this person anymore. You're targeting someone else who has probably also, as I say, stepped down the staircase. I like to consider it like we've all we've all been on a staircase and everyone's taken a step down, and that's even people with money, because while they may still be making money, at the same time everything else has gone up electricity, you know, it took me 10 bucks this morning to buy a carton of oj, like what even? And it's like these things have gone up. So while they may be making still making good money it's still that everything else has still gone up. So so, while they may be making still making good money it's still that everything else has still gone up.
Speaker 1:So we're looking at this from a term of if you go back to what I was saying in terms of likability, people need to be able to see themselves in your product and if that identity isn't there, they're not going to engage. So the conversation needs to be who is our audience right now and what are they doing? And how are they different from where they were before? Because the people that we were targeting even 12 months ago has shifted again. You need to be constantly looking and tweaking and adapting at the moment to see what works. And when you find what works, you go hard on it.
Speaker 1:And then we look at the last, on the it's belonging, and so community belonging again similar thing to likeability, personality and how that person comes along. You need to attract the right people and then we look at belonging. So, as a community, who are the people that sit within that space? You know, we go to certain gyms or we go to certain restaurants, we go to a certain coffee shop, because they have that vibe and that community that we want to associate ourselves with as people, certain schools, certain sporting cultures, certain community that we want to associate ourselves with as people, certain schools, certain sporting cultures, certain teams that we support. These things have notoriously been across the board in every single instance of human behavior. We like to be in groups. We are literally packs. So what is the community pack mentality that you have created around your brand? Think about those three things and you will go on the right track to you know, moving forward.
Speaker 1:The problem is we look at SMEs and they say I'm too little to do this stuff. Absolutely not. We've seen huge shifts. Actually, in more cases, you have the ability to diversify and really change things up because the reputation isn't as massive Like you know. If you're a brand like you know, blue chip brand, like I don't know Maccas or something like blue chip brand, huge, big brand and all of a sudden you know they have something go wrong. That's like PR 101. They are then investing big money to make sure that their reputation stays intact. For smaller brands, sure, but you can put those fires out on a much smaller scale. Damage can be done, however much smaller scale. So you can take those risks and be a little bit more nimble, and it gives you the ability to test.
Speaker 1:The problem is, people don't want to test or they feel that they're okay and that there's another issue. It's when you look at the wider scheme of things in terms of a strategy, and you could really then start to identify where the holes are, when you listen to people, or when you really start to stop trying to talk and actually just consume, and you'll hear people all the time like don't watch what other people are doing, just do your own thing. Yes, I agree with that, but it's also really important for you to be socially listening. So what I would suggest is to stop listening to the advice of tactics and all the things that people are telling you to do, and to actually go and just watch what people are saying about certain things. And you can find this on threads. You can put yourself out on Google alerts and get them to alert you in your industry, and there are ways for you to be able to, under Reddit threads, to go out and read and understand what's going on, because they are the little gold nuggets in how you can then move forward, because it may be that you go oh man, all of a sudden you've realized that your target market's out, or that the messaging that you've been using is out, or something that you thought wasn't broken is actually completely a dog pile. And that's when you go back and you go, oh, and then you make one tiny tweak and then boom, you know, it all comes back.
Speaker 1:And so for me, at your One and Only, I've actually had to go through this huge identity redevelopment, both personally and professionally. And so what we've done over the past 12 months so Sam and I have been building things out is go back to the drawing board. What is it that we stand for? What is it that we want? We never really strayed from that original brand strategy. So the brand strategy has remained the same, but what has changed is how our approach to things has changed. So our values again stay the same, our intention and objective still the same, how we do that has changed. So we go, okay, this isn't working. Now we need to shift it this way, let's try it this way, or now we want to do this, but we want to do more of our big thinking, because I've always been a big thinker, and do you know what? I was restraining that. So now that's coming out and you'll see that through strategy. It's when you have a great idea. That's when the execution hits. So it's you can have.
Speaker 1:The reason that people struggle with their design, even their writing, is because their strategy isn't sound. When you know your strategy, you can really easily marry up a visual identity to that or marry up words to align with that. It's when the personality is out and you know how you differ in the market is out is that that's when you find problems. So people just completely jump this process and they go straight into the visual execution and they find that by the end of it, they've missed this huge, huge area that builds the perception of who they are as a brand, and that's when it all falls to shit. And so I guess, at the end of the day, understanding what brand strategy is and knowing the knowledge gap of what it is that you want people to remember about you If they were to walk away, had an interaction with your brand, what is it that you want them to say about you? Because these are the things that you need to start pushing through your marketing and through your conversations and your messaging. What do you want people to say about you when you're not in the room, as old mate Bezos, said, so I hope that was a little nice rant for you.
Speaker 1:It went on a tangent. In the next couple of episodes I'm kind of breaking down the areas of strategy, but in the meantime, we have our laboratory that has just launched. There are three phases to it and I would highly suggest you go over and have a look, because doors will close on the. I think it's like the 26th of October and currently we have a bonus going out really cool PDF bonus that's hitting out on psychology hacks to get your customers to go head over heels for your brand, and so that's coming out with every purchase for the next few days. So jump onto that.
Speaker 1:In the meantime, it's a three-part process that will tackle all of this. So we start with the brain lab, and it talks about behavior and human psychology and the way that we act and behave, based on you know, how we fit in and our identities and the way our brain works. Then we have brand, which talks about brand strategy exactly this stuff. So, once you understand your people, then you build the brand strategy and go okay, how can I do this? And then, lastly, you have design, which will be released in early 2025, in February, and then that will talk about how you then execute that to attract. So it's about the user experience and how to communicate visually, and so that's something that I've been building for the last I don't know how long, to be completely fair. It's been a long time coming, but really heavily invested in this for the last, you know, 18 months and it's finally finally coming out. So I'm really really excited about it because I believe this is something that so many entrepreneurs need to be aware of, and obviously it's broken down into areas for it to be really accessible to everyone, because that's something that I also believe in as a business and a brand. But that is today.
Speaker 1:I hope you liked this episode. Please feel free to jump in and message us if you have any questions, because I always love to have a chat and, aside from that, I will chat to you next week. Did you like that episode? I hope so, because if you did, why don't you head over to whatever platform you listen on and rate and review? It's much appreciated and helps others know what we're about. If you want to follow us, you can find us at youwantanonly underscore.
